Sunday, December 26, 2010

Week Ending December 26

Monday - AM: 7.5 miles (2,000') hard. Horsetooth - Southridge - Audra - North Summit - Horsetooth - Soderberg - Spring Creek - Falls - Home. It was just me and Alistair at the house this morning, with Dana, her mom and Stella at the hospital in Lafayette. Called my neighbor Brad to see if he would be willing to watch Alistair for an hour so I could celebrate the birth of my daughter with a trip to the top of Horsetooth. Brad obliged and I stormed up to the rock (didn't don a watch, but would guess that I was close to PR pace). It was supremely serene on top. I broke the silence by shouting Stella's name at the top of my lungs - yeah, I know! Bumped into another neighbor on the way down and pulled a few markers from Chubby Cheeks as we went.PM - late afternoon: 6.5 miles (2,500'). Green Mountain via Gregory/Ranger w/ jog from Chautauqua. 35:03 up from Greg TH. After hanging with Dana and Stella at the hospital in Lafayette for a few hours, I couldn't resist the urge to go summit Green Mountain, which was sitting smack dab in the middle of the view from the hospital window. I told Dana that I needed to go yell Stella's name from a second peak on her second day on this earth. Dana bought it and I was off. After feeling spry summiting Horsetooth earlier in the day, I figured I would try and get up Green at an up-tempo effort. While I wasn't 'killing it,' I was by no means jogging. Made a note to take splits on the way, but only got the cabin (15:10). Hiked second half of the grunt past the four-way. As promised, I yelled to Stella from my perch atop Green. The descent was slower than the ascent due to darkness and a very weak headlight.PM (2) - Evening: 6.5 miles (1,650'). Met a group from the trailrunners in the Horsetooth parking lot at 11:15 for a late night eclipse-watching jaunt to the top of the rock. We went at a social pace and lucked out with a close to cloudless night. Stopped on the way back down on Southridge as the full eclipse was getting into high gear. The mist completely cleared to reveal bright stars, an orange moon and a handful of shooting stars: Quite the show. Back home at 1:15.

Tuesday - PM: 11 miles (1,100') steady state. 1:16. From my house to Arthurs TH and back via 38e, campground and valley trails. 18:00 to Soderberg, 40:00 O&B from Soderberg to Arthurs, 18:21 home. Ran comfortably hard most of the way, though started out relatively easy coming down the hill to Shoreline - ran almost an even split coming back up versus the down. Steady on the valley trails.

Wednesday - Noon: 8.5 miles (500') easy. To Arthurs and back from Field of Dreams TH.PM: 5 miles easy @ Pineridge.

Thursday - AM: 11.5 miles (2,300') easy. Jogged down to Soderberg to meet Pete, Crystal and Dan T for a jog up Towers (38:30), then cut back home on Westridge/Horsetooth. Beautiful sunrise/full moon morning. I don't always run in the morning, but when I do, I prefer to run on mornings like this.PM - 7.5 miles easy with FCTR @ Pineridge.

I really, really didn't want to do this session, but drove myself to the track anyway as I knew once I was there, there was no way I would back out. Jogged out a two-mile warm-up feeling stiff and slow, while thinking about other workouts that might be easier. I felt uncoordinated for most of the workout, especially the miles. Anyway, the idea behind this workout was to transition between a short-course effort and long-course effort in a bid to make the 5:50s feel easy. For the most part the MP stuff felt good, given how I was feeling pre-run, but the 5:30 miles felt harder than I would have liked. Just a few more visits to the oval, then I can leave it all behind and resume a full mountain jogging schedule.

Sunday - AM: 21 miles steady. 2:19. Overland, Poudre trail, Spring Creek trail. Ran 7:00s to warm up on the 5.5 miles of Overland, then slotted into 6:30s for the remainder. Felt relatively easy for the most part, but form starting breaking down through the last four or five miles and I had to start working a little harder to keep a steady pace. Probably do this run four weeks out from NOLA with the bike path miles at MP as a final hard long workout. Perfect morning.PM - 1 mile around Lily Lake above Estes Park with Dana. Cold, windy and snowy.

Total: 106 miles (12,700')

Still not sure how I'm feeling about 5:50 pace for NOLA. I kind of plucked it out of thin air early in the process and have been trying to train around that number to make it happen. If I don't get my fitness there and still decide to go with it, things could get pretty ugly through the last few miles. I'm hoping the weather for the Littleton 10 miler on Jan. 15 will comply and allow me to get an honest read on my fitness as there really is nothing else of any distance on the CO running calendar that I can race before February.

So anyway, I was able to get out and run pretty much what I wanted this week with my mother and father-in-law staying with us. M-in-L will be back for a week early in the new year, so I should be able to keep the momentum going for the most part. Will run either the Resolution 5k Jan. 31, or the New Year's 5k Jan. 1 to get a read on fitness. Hope to take the tail-end of next week a little easier so I can toe the line with somewhat rested legs.

Went over 4k miles on the year on Christmas Day, so the only goal remaining on that front is to out-run GZ who is currently tracking very close to me on the 2010 mileage front.

6 comments:

A triple, a 12 mile track w/o at sub 6, threshold/tempo run, mountain ascents, an up paced long run, hospitals, in laws... that is pretty intense to say the least!

While I am ready to divorce the track and "mountain jog", as you say, I appreciate the reports on manning up to the track in prep for the marathon. I have one more on my calendar in May that I'm battling to get the speed regime taken care of weekly.

In my mind you have already exceeded my mileage totals since you have (I think) 3x the vertical I have. That and you are banging out the 100 mile weeks - I am not right now and am taking today off to get runs down the slopes.

Just to give you a little context on my marathon experience last year: Going in I thought I could hold 6:05s MP, as training started my hour long MP runs were 6:01s, my mile repeats were done between 5:48 and 5:52. During the race (in AZ) the sheer excitement of the race (and no elevation) had me banging out 5:49 to 5:54s through the first 10 myles - comfortable! I payed for it in the end though. I went through the 1/2 in 1.16:57 and finished 2.37:48, which means I came to the end of my rope around mile 22. I was struggling to keep 7:30s for the final myles. In hindsight, I wish I would have tried a 20 mile run to gauge my MP a little better during training and been more disciplined during the first half.

Jason - yup, definitely a heavy week on both quantity and quality, but I guess with the extra babysitting help I wanted to take full advantage while I could. Cramming may not be the best training strategy, but as a father/FT employee, you do the best you can with the schedule you're given week to week. Sounds like you'll be figuring that out soon enough though. Congrats, BTW!

GZ - Wow, Breck Crest, that's a long way off. Great race. If the timing works I'd love to run it again.

Scott - Looks like you went at it slightly different from me: slower intervals, but faster long runs. I'm just fumbling around right now, hoping that I'm doing a few things right. Appreciate the input.

to continue on what Scott was saying ... there is something about being a bit rested and on the line - for some. For me 10-15 years ago, this was not so much the case. I rarely outraced what I could do in a training session. Now, I seem to get 10 seconds a mile in a race.